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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hi everyone, I'm Eves and welcome to This

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Speaker 1: Day in History Class, a podcast where we one day

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Speaker 1: ship nugs of history straight to your brain through your

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Speaker 1: ear hole. Today is November nineteen. The day was November

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Speaker 1: nineteen o six. Industrial designer Eva Zeisl was born in Budapest, Hungary.

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Speaker 1: She's best known for her tablewar. Eva was born Eva

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Speaker 1: Amalia Streaker to Laura Polini Streaker and Alexander Streaker. Her

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Speaker 1: mother was a historian, feminist and activist, and her father

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Speaker 1: owned a textile factory. Eva enrolled in the Royal Academy

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Speaker 1: of Fine Arts in Budapest when she was seventeen years

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Speaker 1: old with the intent of studying painting, but her mother

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Speaker 1: urged her to learn a practical trade, and she decided

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Speaker 1: to become a ceramist. She dropped out of the academy

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Speaker 1: after three semesters and began an apprenticeship with Jacob kapon

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Speaker 1: Chick was a member of the Hungarian Guild of chimney sweeps,

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Speaker 1: oven makers, roof towers, well diggers and potters. Eva soon

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Speaker 1: graduated as a journeyman or a trained worker, and started

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Speaker 1: to create her own pottery. On a trip to Paris

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Speaker 1: in nine she visited the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative

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Speaker 1: and Industrial Arts and became familiar with the Bauhaus, the

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Speaker 1: International style of architecture, and other modernist designs. Eva's work

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Speaker 1: was exhibited at local trade fairs, and Hungarian ceramic manufacturers

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Speaker 1: took notice of her art and commissioned collections. In nineteen

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Speaker 1: six her work one an honorable mention at the Philadelphia

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Speaker 1: Sasqui Centennial. At this point, Eva was working as a

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Speaker 1: designer in the Kishbaster factory in Budapest, creating designs for

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Speaker 1: decordive art objects. She wasn't in that job long before

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Speaker 1: her desire to travel boll and learned new skills took

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Speaker 1: her to Hamburg, Germany and Stromberg, Germany, where she worked

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Speaker 1: at Stromberger Majolica Fabric, designing tableware. There she honed her

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Speaker 1: industrial design expertise to create art deco designs that were

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Speaker 1: both beautiful and functional and were able to be mass

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Speaker 1: produced successfully. Eva's work merged sleek modern designs with more

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Speaker 1: lyrical classic shapes. In nineteen thirty, Eva moved to Berlin,

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Speaker 1: where she worked as a freelance designer for several companies.

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Speaker 1: After two years of immersing herself in Berlin's art scenes,

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Speaker 1: she ended up moving again, this time to the Soviet Union.

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Speaker 1: She worked at the Lomonosoft factory in Leningrad now St.

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Speaker 1: Petersburg designing table, where that was rooted in modernism and

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Speaker 1: eighteenth century Russian designs. By nineteen thirty four, she had

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Speaker 1: moved to Moscow to work at the dal Jeva Porcelain factory,

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Speaker 1: and soon she became the artistic director of the Russian

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Speaker 1: Republics China and Last Industry. But in nineteen thirty six,

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Speaker 1: Eva was falsely accused of plotting to kill Stalin. She

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Speaker 1: was arrested in May and imprisoned, where she was subjected

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Speaker 1: to brainwashing and torture. She spent most of that time

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Speaker 1: in solitary confinement until she was released in September of

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirty seven. When she got out of prison, she

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Speaker 1: went to Vienna, only to leave in March of nineteen

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Speaker 1: thirty eight as the Nazis arrived. From there, she moved

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Speaker 1: to England and married Hans Zeissel. The couple moved to

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Speaker 1: the US, where Eva would spend the rest of her

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Speaker 1: life as a designer and writer. In nineteen thirty nine,

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Speaker 1: she began teaching at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. She had

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Speaker 1: two children, Jean in nineteen forty and John in nineteen

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Speaker 1: forty four. Sears, Roebuck and Company was one of the

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Speaker 1: first companies to commission her work in the US. Other

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Speaker 1: companies that commissioned work from Zeisel were Hauled China, Red

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Speaker 1: Wing China, Castleton China, and Western Stoneware. She even designed

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Speaker 1: the Eva Zeisel Resilient Chair. Seisl continued designing ceramics, furniture, glassware,

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Speaker 1: and other objects until her death in two thousand eleven.

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Speaker 1: Her work is in the permanent collections of the British Museum,

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Speaker 1: the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan

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Speaker 1: Museum of Art, and many other institutions. I'm eas Jeffcote

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Speaker 1: and hopefully you know a little more about history today

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Speaker 1: than you did yesterday. You can keep up with us

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Speaker 1: on social media on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at t

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Speaker 1: d I h C podcast. You can also email us

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Speaker 1: at this Day at i heart media dot com. Thanks

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Speaker 1: again for listening. We'll see same place tomorrow. For more

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